RU | EN
Submenu

Manichkin N. Blood as Ontological Fluid of the Afro-Cuban Witchcraft

N. Manichkin
N. N. Miklukho-Maklai Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology of the Russian Academy of Sciences
Мoscow, Russian Federation
ORCID: 0000-0001-9308-0094
E-mail: nes.pilawa@gmail.com

 

 Download  |  Go to Issue #1. 2022

 

ABSTRACT. The article explores the meaning of blood in the Afro-Cuban religious and magical cults, mainly Santeria and Palo Monte. It reviews traditional concepts of blood that exist in these cults and have a predominantly African origin as well as ritual practices in connection with the phenomenology of the body. The author argues that the blood model is an agent of metaphysical continuity which allows priests and sorcerers to carry out the ritual transition between different ontological orders: the living and the dead, humans and animals. Field materials collected during 2013 and 2019 in Havana and general ethnographic sources make it possible to consider blood as a substance mainly associated with the Kalunga, the dead dynamic presence in the corporeal existence of the living. As a correlate of the Kalunga, blood is the primary agent of initiations and sacrifices united by the common logic of the holistic bodily-spiritual involvement of man in being. Such involvement implies a special sacred marking of human corporeality, carried out ritually by scarifying and uniting people and the sphere of spirits through blood. This markup is both individual and social. The blood of various living beings is ranked according to the degree of “warmth”, and the human blood is considered the “hottest”, which determines the ritual sequence and a number of prohibitions. The author of the article traces the cosmological division between witchcraft and spiritualistic practices according to the presence or frequency of blood sacrifices and the use of blood. 

 

KEYWORDS: Cuba, Santeria, Palo Monte, magic, embodiment, blood, initiation 

 

DOI 10.31250/2618-86 0 0-2022-1(15)-227-249
УДК 111.1:39 

 

REFERENCES

  • Bolívar Aróstegui N. Los Orishas en Cuba [Orishas in Cuba]. La Habana: Institutio cubano del libro editorial José Martí, 2017. (In Spanish).
  • Bolívar Aróstegui N., González Díaz de Villegas C., del Río Bolívar N. Ta Makuende Yaya y las Reglas de Palo Monte: Mayombe, Brillumba, Kimbisa, Shamalongo [Ta Makuende Yaya and Palo Monte Rules: Mayombe, Brillumba, Kimbisa, Shamalongo]. La Habana: Editorial José Julián Martí, 2013. (In Spanish).
  • Bunseki Fu-Kiau K. K. African Cosmology of the Bantu-Kongo: Tying the Spiritual Knot, Principles of Life & Living. New York: Athelia Henrietta Press, Pub. in the name of Orunmila, 2001. (In English).
  • Cabrera L. El monte [The Bush]. La Habana: Editorial Letras Cubanas, 2018. (In Spanish).
  • Cabrera L. Reglas de Congo Palo Monte Mayombe. Miami: Ediciones Universal, 1986. (In Spanish).
  • Clark M. A. Santería Sacrificial Rituals: A Reconsideration of Religious Violence. Pomegranate: The International Journal of Pagan Studies, 2006, no. 2, pp. 133–145. (In English).
  • Covington J. D. Embodied Histories, Danced Religions, Performed Politics: Kongo Cultural Performance and the Production of History and Authority. PhD diss. The University of Michigan, 2008. (In English).
  • De Danann A. Pamiat’ krovi [Memory of blood]. Moscow; Voronezh: Terra Foliata Publ., 2012. (In Russian).
  • Espírito Santo D. The Power of the Dead: Spirits, Socialism, and Selves in an Afro-Cuban Universe. Fieldwork in Religion, 2008, no. 3 (2), pp. 161–177. (In English).
  • Espírito Santo D., Kerestetzi K., Panagiotopoulos A. Human substances and ontological transformations in the African-inspired ritual complex of Palo Monte in Cuba. Critical African Studies, 2013, no. 5 (3), pp. 195–219. (In English).
  • Fichte H. Xango [Shango]. Frankfurt am Main: S. Fischer Verlag, 1976. (In German).
  • Gottlieb A., Buckley T. Blood Magic: The Anthropology of Menstruation. Oakland: University of California Press, 1988. (In English).
  • Herbert E. W. Iron, Gender, and Power: Rituals of Transformation in African Societies. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994. (In English).
  • Hurston Z. N. Tell My Horse: Voodoo and Life in Haiti and Jamaica. New York: Harper Collins, 2008. (In English).
  • Jacobson-Widding A. Red-White-Black as a Mode of Thought: a Study of Triadic Classification by Сolours in the Ritual Symbolism and Cognitive Thought of the Peoples of the Lower Congo. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International, 1979. (In English).
  • Kerestetzi K. Vivre avec les morts à Cuba. Réinvention et transmission religieuse dans le palo monte [Living with the dead in Cuba. Reinvention and religious transmission in Palo Monte]. Paris: Karthala, 2016. (In French).
  • Linedecker C. L. Hell Ranch: The Nightmare Tale of Voodoo, Drugs and Death in Matamoros. London; Sydney: Futura Publication, 1990. (In English).
  • Manichkin N. A. [Ethnic-Cultural Memory in the Cuban cult of spiritual dolls]. Etnograficheskoe obozrenie [Etnograficheskoe obozrenie], 2020, no. 1, pp. 132–152. (In Russian).
  • Martínez-Ruiz B. Mambo Comes from the Soul. Call and Response, Journeys in African Art. Eds. by Adams S., Martínez-Ruiz B., Weber J., Williams L., Thompson R. F. Yale: Yale University Art Gallery, 2000, pp. 79–120. (In English).
  • Mattos Frisvold N. Palo Mayombe — The Garden of Blood and Bones. London: Scarlet Imprint, 2011. (In English). Megenney W. W. Bantu Survival in the Cuban “Lengua de Mayombe”. ISLAS, 2008, no. 3, pp. 51–63. (In English).
  • Ochoa T. R. Society of the Dead: Quita Manaquita and Palo Praise in Cuba. Berkeley; Los Angeles; London: University of California Press, 2010. (In English).
  • Palmié S. Wizards and Scientists: Explorations in Afro-Cuban Modernity and Tradition. Durham; London: Duke University Press, 2002. (In English).
  • Savchuk V. V. Krov’ i kul’tura [Blood and culture]. St. Petersburg: Izdatel’stvo SanktPeterburgskogo universiteta, 1995. (In Russian).
  • Turner T. Social body and embodied subject: bodiliness, subjectivity, and sociality among the Kayapo. Cultural Anthropology, 1995, no. 10, pp. 143–170. (In English).
  • Turner V. Simvol i ritual [Symbol and ritual]. Moscow: Nauka, 1983. 277 p. (In Russian).
  • Woodard B. Dinamika slizi. Zarozhdenie, mutatsiia i polzuchest‘ zhizni [Slime Dynamics. Generation, Mutation, and the Creep of Life]. Perm’: Gile Press Publ., 2016. 124 p. (In Russian)